Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
.....Oingo Boingo
A is home for a one night only appearance. I was happy she was leaving for camp, now I am happy she is home. She is working with an older group of girls this year so her time spent at camp will be slightly different.
For one thing, the older girls say goodbye in different ways than the younger girls.
Older girls know camp will happen again next year and so goodbye is not forever. Younger girls think this is it. The last goodbye.
It usually isn't.
But A is smart because she knows sometimes it is.
It is funny how memories cloud goodbyes. Some people see a time of joy while others see pain and still others see a combination.
This week has become a week of goodbyes. Red says it means something else is opening. I feel like I have tried, on many levels, to let life be. Maybe I have simply over-estimated my role or non-role.
But here we are...
Smarty asked what I wanted. I want to train. I went swimming tonight and tomorrow is a long bike ride day. She asked how I do it. I made a joke.
The truth? I am training my way through goodbyes. I hadn't realized it until I was in the pool tonight. I have spent the last year asking people to be who they are, and accepting.
And it was wonderfully enlightening.
Goodbyes. It is how I first got started as a runner. I needed to say goodbye to my mother after she died, then a marriage, now...the past year.
And now it is time for a more iron-centered focus. And an apartment search. And to go back to letting life just 'be'. And, like the younger and older girls at camp, I will just be reminded that there is often more to come. Next year.
And working through all those goodbyes. Like at camp each year. Goodnight, A. Goodnight, blog. See you tomorrow.
